Quick Colombian tours (Salento – Villa de Leyva – Bogotá)

I’ve now been here just over 3 months and I’ve taken the time to do some exploring.  There is, of course, a lot more to do but that can be for a later time.

At the end of January a friend came to visit and though I was working we made the most of my weekends.

We flew to Pereira to go and visit the Eje Cafetero (coffee region or Coffee Triangle).  

views arriving in Pereira

Based on recommendations from other friends who’d been in town we went to Salento.  This is a cute, colourful (if touristy/backpacker-ish) town.

Salento houses

Salento houses

We stayed at a lovely hotel with a fantastic view over the area.

view from hotel

From here we visited the Ocaso coffee finca where we learnt about how coffee is made, and of course sampled some coffee!

Ocaso coffee finca 

coffee beans - the red are less frequent

coffee grinder

ground coffee

the role of women at the finca

different ways of making coffee

tasting the coffee

tasting the coffee

views from the finca

Salento is a nice town to wander around, relax over coffee and enjoy the country-side.   

busy Salento

kids getting pushed around the square

Salento restaurant

The Cocora Valley national park is in the area, however we didn’t have time to visit it but we did see some of the famed Wax Palms of the region.

wax palm

On the way back to Pereira we drove via Filandia and Quimbaya, similar little towns like Salento.

Filandia church

Filandia street

Filandia houses

Quimbaya

In Bogotá we took advantage of a ‘no car’ day (ie no traffic, fortunately taxis were allowed to drive) to go to Monserrate.  This is a church at the top of one of the mountains surrounding Bogotá.  To get to the top you can take a cable car or funicular (or walk but I wasn’t going to do that!).  The trick is to get a clear day for the views over Bogotá but our day was a bit foggy so we had a limited view. 

Monserrate church

Funicular tunnel

city view

city view by night

We also went downtown one afternoon, to the Plaza Bolivar which is the site of ‘El Catedral and government buildings (the Town Hall, the Capitolio Nacional).  

Plaza Bolivar with El Cathedral (and many pigeons!)

El Capitolio Nacional

Mayor's office (Town Hall)

street leading off Plaza Bolivar

street poet

This is also the La Candelaria area with some of the oldest cafés (where we had the popular hot chocolate with cheese at La Puerta Falsa) 

hot chocolate and cheese

hot chocolate and cheese

local delicacies

and some interesting, winding roads, with ‘alternative’ wares.  (Think Soho in London, red light district in Amsterdam).

La Candelaria street

For the second weekend we hired a car and drove to Villa de Leyva.  This is about 3 hours from Bogotá, driving through the agricultural region of Boyacá.  

the road to Villa de Leyva

the road to Villa de Leyva

arriving at Villa de Leyva

Villa de Leyva is a Colonial town which has retained a lot of its old heritage (from cobbled streets to houses and churches).

Plaza Mayor

Villa de Leyva streets

 

Villa de Leyva streets

Villa de Leyva streets

Church altar

In the town we came across a chocolate museum.  Naturally we had to sample!

Chocolate Museum

again hot chocolate with cheese!

We also saw people selling their wares on the streets.

This lady was selling pepper - no idea how it compares to Kampot pepper!

This region also had vineyards and we visited the Marques de Villa de Leyva vineyard (which was inexplicably called Aim Karim – though we later found out the vines had come from Israel so this might be why).  

The tour was followed by a tasting.  They only offered one wine which unfortunately wasn’t really drinkable.  

 We did buy a white from them and enjoyed that instead.

My next ‘exploration tour’ will be to Cartagena, with a friend who’s here over Easter.  Plus I’ve yet to visit the Botero museum, the gold museum and the emerald district in Bogotá.  Many more places to see, exciting times!